Authors: Sheri S. Tepper
“There has been much woman-wastage in history. Women have been used as breeders only, as dawn to dusk agricultural workers, as beasts of burden. They have been unconsidered, used up, untaught, cast aside, injured or killed, not allowed to grow or live to their potential. In societies that do this, it is a ‘way of life,’ but there is little or no culture. Heterosexual males, when by themselves, seem to fall naturally into the gang pattern where rape is an amusement or a battle tactic. Haraldson’s edicts, however, make it clear that we expect more than that from humanity.
“Here on Newholme we choose to be human and we cannot afford to waste women’s reproductive nature or their cultural talents. Injury is forbidden. Injury invalidates a marriage, no matter how much dowry has been paid, and a husband or Consort who purposely kills or injures a woman is invariably blue-bodied.
“Any other questions? Good. We will discuss this further on future occasions. You are excused.”
A
short walk from House Genevois, the Panhagion stood on a low mound a few streets west of the river, just outside the main business district but accessible from the broad, straight length of the boulevard that connected the north and south gates of the city. A fraction of every dowry paid for a wife went to support the Panhagion. A fraction of every Consort’s pay went to support the Panhagion. Every Hag, every Hagger, every Temple worker or young married woman doing her matron’s stint of Temple duty was jealous of the honor of the Panhagion, for it was the center of religious life not only in Sendoph but in all of settled Newholme.
Most women chose to deliver their babies in the birthing center in the vaults below the Temple, where birth was considered sacramental and where the most skilled mid-wives were found. If some could not deliver at the Temple, at least they tried to have Temple midwives. The viral invasion of the X chromosome that killed half of all female infants on Newholme while allowing virtually all of the boy children to live was best understood by the Temple midwives.
The domed hall of the fortress became the Panhagion Sanctuary, a place for the adoration of the Hagions, the female deities. The lower levels surrounding this space and accessible from the forecourt were given over to the offices that conducted public business. In the vaults below, the Hags Observant, each of whom could count over forty years service to the Hagions, supervised the birthing suites and the secret rituals. Their lengthy lives of service were rewarded by the provision of luxurious living quarters in the towers at the back of the Temple.
Among the Hags Observant were two cousins, D’Jevier and Onsofruct Passenger, who had been born in the Temple and had, at the Hags’ order, been reared there. D’Jevier was tall and extremely slender, with tightly drawn nut-brown skin that gleamed slightly in the lamplight. Onsu-fruct was a year or so older, shorter, darker, and rounder. Except when bathing or sleeping, they wore what all the Hags wore: soft, long-sleeved, high-necked gowns with close-fitting wimples that hid their necks and heads and served as an anchor for the complicated folds and twists of the bright headscarves that marked their rank. The colors of their gowns betokened their lengths of service. Novices wore yellow; young women, green; middle-aged women, blue; and crones, shades of red that increased in vividness with their years. D’Jevier and Onsofruct had passed into cronehood some time since; they wore gowns and figured kerchiefs the bright crimson of fresh blood or burning coals.
The garments were so vivid that someone looking upward at the balcony where the cousins stood, high on the east side of the residence tower, might have thought the tower was on fire, a conflagration echoing that on the eastern scarp. There a crimson gash had recently appeared below a billowing eruption of ash, and this great gray cloud had opened a gaping sleeve of angry flame to stretch a cinereous arm toward Sendoph.
D’Jevier’s voice quavered as she remarked, “It’s worse than it’s ever been!” She sipped from her wineglass as she watched the smoky fist sail toward her, closer and closer, the fat, billowy fingers extending. So huge, so incorporeal, so deadly, nonetheless. Her fancied confrontation with this monster was aborted by a gust of wind that swept down the valley of the Giles, breaking the ashen cloud into scattered shreds of gray.
She murmured, “I wish we could ask the Council of Worlds for help.”
“Help to do what?” Onsofruct asked. “We can’t ask for evacuation. There are too many of us.”
“I read something about HoTA devising some new method of controlling earthquakes….”
“Can they do it from off-planet?”
“No. I’m sure not. It involved burning deep wells along the fault lines and pumping in some kind of shock-absorbing liquid. It doesn’t stop the earth moving, but it does make the movement smooth instead of shuddering. It’s the shaking does the worst damage….”
“Well, take your pick,” said D’Jevier. “Die in a quake or invite COW in and die anyhow.”
“You think the Council of Worlds would really kill us all?”
“In the first place, they’d send the Questioner. The Questioner doesn’t even need council approval anymore, hasn’t for at least a century. And what the Questioner would do would be worse than merely killing us all.”
“If she comes here, she would see … what she would see.”
“She’d turn right around and make examples of us, for the edification of the galaxy.”
“So we’re trapped.”
“Trapped ourselves.”
“We didn’t. Not you and me.”
“Well, Hags did. And Men of Business.”
A long silence. D’Jevier tipped her glass and pretended to be concentrating upon the light reflected in its depths as she said, “We might ask …
them
. Maybe they know something that would help.”
“Jevvy! You wouldn’t dare!”
The other woman grinned mirthlessly, shaking her head. “Every day I get closer to daring. If it gets worse, yes, I’ll dare.”
Both fell silent, thinking long, hard thoughts that they had already gone over a thousand times. Decisions made centuries ago that could not now be unmade. Roads taken that allowed no possibility of return. An hour later they were still there, their glasses long since empty, still staring wordlessly at the world-wound upon the height, livid ash and bleeding fire. They and their world were at the mercy of the mountain, and they could think of nothing at all that would be helpful.
“I
t’s really very simple.” The Planetary Compliance worker smiled fleetingly at Ellin across the shining width of her authority surface. “Do pay attention.
“The Questioner is a device of the Council of Worlds. The Questioner moves about among the worlds assessing mankind-occupied worlds for conformity to the edicts of Haraldson. While doing assessments, the Questioner likes to take along a person or persons from a similar developmental stage as the world being assessed. One of the planets to be assessed, for example, is Bandat, where society has achieved what the Absolute Correct Ones call their preholiness phase. Another world is Chirry-chirry-dim-dim, which the Butterfly-Boys identify as being in the caterpillar stage prior to planetary pupation. You will visit Newholme, which is in the incipient industrial stage.”
Ellin Voy, Nordic-Quota 2980–4653, shifted uneasily. After a long moment of silence, she cleared her throat and asked, “Am I here because I play a part in History House and have some knowledge of preindustrial society?”
“Honorable Ellin, from Old Earth America, you are here partly for that reason, but more because you are a dancer. Also going to Newholme will be Honorable Gandro Bao, who is a character in History House of the tenth Asian Urbopolis.” The woman in blue nodded gently in the direction of a lean, olive-skinned man in the chair nearest Ellin. “Honorable Gandro Bao works in Old Earth, Asia: Heritage of the Arts. He is an actor-dancer of the fifteen to nineteen hundreds, Kabuki style, authentic female impersonator. Honorable Ellin is a dancer of western classical style. Among this variety of background, some skill should be found to assist the Questioner in assessing the planet Newholme.”
“We are assessing it for what?” asked the man identified as Gandro Bao. “I am not understanding the role of dancers.”
The woman in blue put her face in censorious mode, one of the seven official government expressions Ellin had been able to identify over the years: kindliness with smile and/or chuckle, businesslike with tight lips, censorious with narrowed eyes, threatening with mouth distended, rage with red face, forgiveness with nod and gesture of benediction, and pity with sorrowful mouth and dropped eyes and chin. Conversations invariably began with kindly or businesslike, though they might end with any of the seven.
“Were you not educated, Honorable Gandro Bao?” challenged the PCO.
He nodded, seeming in no whit embarrassed. “I am recognizing what is the Questioner. I am recalling function of Questioner in examining planets. I am not understanding why dancer is wanted.”
“Ah.” Her expression switched to forgiveness, the requisite smile flickering in and out of existence so quickly as to be almost subliminal. “Questioner is allowed total discretion in determining how investigation is done. Questioner has asked for dancers. Therefore, we send dancers. Questioner does not say why. We do not ask.”
Ellin shook her head, conscious of weariness and annoyance. “So we’re supposed to go to Newholme, which will be kind of a History House in the sky, and determine whether they treat one another properly? An android could do that!”
The censorious expression returned. “The Questioner is beyond criticism. If Questioner felt an android could do it, an android would be sent.”
“Sorry,” murmured Ellin. “I’m just … surprised, is all.” Surprised hardly expressed it. She was actually shocked into near paralysis. The thought of being suddenly uprooted left her teetering over an abyss, fumbling for words and proper responses, dizzy and adrift, shocked by the immediacy and strength of her emotions. After all the years she had imagined being free, after all those dreams of going to other worlds, seeing other peoples, finding her own special place in which to live her own, unique life, now here she was, invited to do virtually as she’d always thought she wanted, at no trouble or expense to herself, and she was frightened witless.
“You may have time to adapt,” said the woman in blue, giving her a very percipient look.
The word evoked a veritable bonfire of associations. Time to adapt. Time to move on. Time to do this, do that. Infant fosterage giving way to boarding school in History House. Boarding school giving way to advanced studies. Advanced studies giving way to the corps de ballet. Always time to say good-bye, to give up treasured things, familiar friends, always time to adapt….
The woman’s voice cut through Ellin’s confusion. “Suddenness is difficult for all creatures, but this will not be sudden. Honorables Ellin Voy and Gandro Bao will go to Newholme. The ship leaves soon, in seven days, but the voyage will be lengthy. During some of it, you will be asleep. For this next few days, however, the honorables will live here, in prelaunch. During this time you have medical assessment, wardrobe and other necessities will be assembled, and you will have access to all records and reports on the planet Newholme, which should be studied assiduously. Go through that door there,” she pointed, “to Suite Four Thirty-Four.”
The forgiving expression returned momentarily as the woman returned to her papers. “Honorable DoJub and Honorable Clementi will be visiting the planet Boshque, which is in a late arboreal phase due to ground-level predation….”
Bao stood in front of the door sensor, keeping the door open for Ellin, a courtesy which earned him a half smile. The two of them prowled silently down the corridor, Ellin avoiding his eyes, concentrating on finding Suite Four Thirty-Four. She needn’t have bothered, for at their approach a door lit up and caroled a welcome.
“Honorables Ellin and Bao. Welcome to Suite Four Thirty-Four, prelaunch facility for planetary examiners.”
Bao broke his silence with an angry mutter. “Being much filth and excrement. Five days from now I am to be dancing the lead in the Chikamatsu
Shinj ten no Amijima
, with orchestrated Joruri, as adapted from the Bunraku. I have been much wishing this for three years. And now this is happening!”
“Be calm,” said the door in a soothing tone. “Feel elation! HoLI COW pays off contracts of all nominees who are contractees as well as post-bondage stipend. Once duty is done for the Questioner, you are free! Feel satisfaction! Do not distress yourself, Honorables. Even if you do not return for decades, all will be well. Oh, feel elation!”
At the word “decades,” Ellin felt a watery lick, as though an icy wave were rising inside her, threatening to spurt out of her throat in a jet of pure hysteria. She pushed it down, swallowed it, and felt it dissolving her insides. She must not disgrace herself. Not in front of this person. Not in front of this door, which was so very solicitous and was probably programmed to report any deviation from acceptable norms. She dropped into a chair and put her hands over her face, evoking the patterns on her wall, swirlings, eddies, flowing … calm and quiet. Herself part of the flow. None of this was really happening, not yet. She would put off the happening for a little time, and when it came, she would be ready.
“Are you feeling elation?” demanded Bao in an arrogantly angry tone. “Are you liking to go so far for doing Questioner knows what?”
At this interruption of her hard-won calm, she felt a flare of fury, as though she had received an injection of some energizing drug.
“Don’t speak to me as though addressing a nus. I am not a nus. I have useful skills. Though I am a quota-clone, I retain my rights of reproduction and am as honorable as yourself. I, too, have disappointments. This rotation I was to dance in one of the Morris ballets of the late twentieth century. Your arrogance is not acceptable. You will treat me with courtesy, or I shall report you for status harassment!”